India's oil imports to rise 14% in 5 yrs

PTIDec 2, 2005, 05.20pm IST

SINGAPORE: India's oil imports may rise 14 per cent to 2.2 million barrels a day in 2010, said an official at Reliance Industries Ltd.

Imports in 2010 are expected to account for 77 per cent of the nation's total oil consumption, Vivek Karandikar, senior vice president at Reliance Industries, told the Ascope 2005 conference in Manila on Friday.

India purchased 1.93 million barrels a day in the year ended March 31.

"Domestic oil production has stagnated,'' Karandikar said. ``India significantly needs to expand its thrust on domestic exploration and production and equity oil abroad.''

India's failure to boost output that has been at about 32 million tons made the nation's imports rise 6 per cent to 95.68 million tons for the year ended March 31 from a year earlier.

India would probably consume 7 million barrels of oil a day by 2030, of which 6 million barrels may be imported, according to Karandikar.